[Abcdxxxx]

It was a fuck up...

but I'm still curious how some hooligan street looters could manage to break the museum vaults... or what they're going to do with that crumbling stone antiquity they hustled back home?

In terms of importance, I can see why protecting oil fields would get priority... outside of our own interests, the oils fields also represent the future interests of the Iraqi people. The nation isn't going to ever base it's economy on artifact trading, and it's unlikely tourism is going to carry them anytime soon. So it's back to oil. As much as it's a horrible tragedy that artifacts were damaged, and stolen - a symbolic blow to civilization everywhere... the potential damage to oil fields would have turned Iraq into even more of a helpless human rights disaster.